


Not The Colonial Dream

by smolassassinchildx (smolassassinchild)



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-25
Updated: 2010-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-03 05:42:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolassassinchild/pseuds/smolassassinchildx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her pants were starting to feel a little bit snug and she felt the weight of the inevitable revelation of her condition pressing down on her</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Commander,” Kara regarded him coolly as she pushed past him, when he tried to grab her arm.

Lee trailed her down the corridor down in a relentless stride. After several failed attempts to get her to face him, including pulling rank, he blurted out. “I thought we were okay.”

“We are okay!” she snapped, throwing her hands in the air. “We’re fine. Good. Great. Whatever.”

The next second, she was rushing for the head and shook him off when he tried to put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright?” He dropped down to his knees next to her once she’s stopped heaving.

“Yeah.” She shifted away from him. “My stomach’s just been bugging me for a while.”

“How long’s a while?”

“A while.”

“Have you seen Doc Cottle?”

“Yeah.” She pushed herself to her feet and headed for the door. “I have to go.”

She never made it to her viper, back to _Galactica_. Not after _Commander Adama_ made it perfectly clear he wasn’t going to let her fly if she was feeling so sick. He brought her, grudgingly, back to his quarters where she had a private head to use when she had to throw up two more times.

He was getting ready to put a call in to have Cottle brought over when she blurted out: “I’m pregnant.” He felt his jaw drop; she folded her arms over her chest. “Frakking morning sickness can’t tell time.”

She looked anything but happy about it—abortion being illegal now, there wasn’t much she could do. Less than a month ago, when Roslin had been president, she probably could’ve gotten around the law, but with Baltar in charge it didn’t seem likely. Though, knowing Kara, if she really wanted out of this pregnancy there were a dozen or so unorthodox ways she could’ve taken care of it already.

He shifted, folded and unfolded his arms, before he spoke. “You and Sam move fast, huh.”

“It’s not Sam’s,” she said a little too quickly. “We’re not together anymore.”

Lee swallowed hard, wondering why the hell it felt like the room had lost half it’s oxygen. Before he opened his mouth, he had the sinking suspicion he knew what was going on. “…You mean…?”

What felt like an eternity of silence passed and then she finally looked at him. “You really need a recap? You. Me. R&amp;R. _Cloud 9_ storage closet. Ended with us fighting, you getting drinks with Dee, me shooting you, and us not talking for a month.”

“Fun night.” It was all he could get out. His brain was too busy trying to process the information. It was true. It was completely true—Kara Thrace was (he quickly ran the math) nine weeks pregnant with his baby. Half of him wanted to pinch himself, just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

Kara shoved herself off the couch and shook her head like she didn’t know why she was even bothering with the conversation. He didn’t move to touch her, just said, “Kara, wait.” And by some strange twist of fate, she did. “What are you going to do now?”

She drew in a breath, pursed her lips in thought, and shook her head. “I have absolutely no idea.” Her shoulders dropped slightly. “I have no frakking idea how to raise a kid.” She watched him for a moment, eyes fixed on his like she was waiting for him to say something and then the brief flash of vulnerability was gone. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, sir, I need to get back to my ship.”

When she turned to leave, he somehow knew that if he let her walk out that door now, that would be it. This was his one chance, his only chance to really make things right between them, so he called after her, “You don’t have to do this alone.”

Her laugh was humorless, her eyes screwed tightly shut. “Right. You’re going to be my wingman through all of this.”

He stepped towards her and she didn’t step back. “If you’ll let me.”

“What about Dee?” she asked, folding her arms over her chest.

“Obviously this changes things.”

The way she tensed up let him know that it was exactly the wrong thing to say. “Don’t do me any favors, Lee.” She turned on her heel and stormed from the room and this time he didn’t follow her.

***

A week after her encounter with Lee, Kara sat in her office shuffling through her papers and fighting back an intense wave of nausea. Her pants were starting to feel a little bit snug and she felt the weight of the inevitable revelation of her condition pressing down on her. Cottle was threatening to go to the Admiral every day she didn’t, but so far he hadn’t followed through, like he was hoping she’d grow a backbone and fess up to the Old Man herself.

More than once Kara had considered how much easier it would be to raid the galley for ambrosia and just end the problem once and for all. And yet, somehow she couldn’t just make herself go through with it. Maybe if she had done it sooner, as soon as she found out it, would’ve been easier, but frak it all if she wasn’t actually starting to get used to the idea. She wasn’t _happy_ about it, exactly—being CAG was about all the responsibility she could handle, she couldn’t begin to count all the ways she’d frak up having to take care of a kid—but at the same time she wasn’t exactly sure that by the end of nine months she was going to be able to give it up to some family the way she’d been planning.

Helo, trying to cheer her up, had once ribbed her about when was the last time Starbuck backed down from a challenge. Kara rubbed at her temples—true, Starbuck was not the kind of person to back down when the going got tough. On the other hand, drinking, brawling, daredevil-pilot Starbuck would also make a terrible mother. And to make matters worse, she was getting ridiculously hungry.

She sat back in her chair, running a hand down over her slightly rounded stomach. “You’re a real pain in my ass,” she muttered, feeling almost affectionate. “Just like your dad.”

Just then a knock sounded at the hatch. Kara sat up straight once more and tried to look busy with her paperwork. “Come in.” She glanced up to see the object of her stupid conversation step into her office with an expression she couldn’t quite read and a bag slung over his shoulder.

“What do you want, Lee?”

He set the satchel down on the floor and drew out a cylindrical container and carried it over to her desk, setting it down in front of her. She faltered for a moment, trying to hang on to her irritation but she had to admit, he was good. She had not seen this coming. “Lee, where the hell did you get this?”

“The Zephyr still had some aboard; it’s been sitting around in their freezers for ten months, but it should still be good.” Lee gave her a smile and dug out from the bag a spoon, and, despite herself, she greedily snatched it from him.

“I have been craving ice cream for weeks.” She tore the lid off the container and dug in. It had melted some on the way over but that didn’t matter, just made it easier to eat. “I didn’t think there was any left in the universe.”

He pulled up a chair and smiled as he sat down next to her. “I know. Helo said you’d been talking about—”

“You talked to Helo?” She felt a little bit warm despite the dessert. Even though she’d refused all contact with him, he’d been asking about her, checking up on her, and she was having a hell of a time trying to tamp down the little flutter of happiness that was starting to build. Just hormones, she reassured herself, until Lee made it practically impossible to ignore.

“I broke things off with Dee.”

And there was that frakking flutter again, threatening to turn into an entire swarm of butterflies. Dee was a good person, smart, stable—and Lee had walked away from all of that. Lee had just left his simple, easy relationship and for what? What did he want? “Why’d you do that?”

Lee reached out, brushing his hand over her cheek. “I told you, Kara. I told you I wanted to be here for you. That is what I want.” And as if sealing a promise he caught her face between his hands and kissed her breathless. And gods, gods it was good, the taste of his lips, the feel of his mouth all hot and hungry for her. She remembered every bit of it, better than it was before.

Kara broke for air, dizzy and panting and staring into those eyes. Lee stared right back at her, all that blue lit up bright with hope. He actually wanted her—wanted to try for some frakked up version of a family with her—and she melted in to him a little bit. “What do you say, Kara?”

“Well.” Her tongue darted out, moistening her lips. She rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. “I guess you owe me.” She gave a sharp nod. “Yeah, I think you owe me a hell of a lot. Knocking me up and all that.”

Lee let his hand slide down to her stomach, just the slightest bit rounded and smiled, godsdamnit he was beautiful when he smiled. She fleetingly wondered if the kid inside of her would have his smile. He brushed his hand along her hip. “And how long do you think it’ll take me to repay this debt?”

“Oh, I think eighteen years. At least.”

“Eighteen years, huh?” His hand slipped down, thumb stroking along the inner seam of her pants and she gasped softly. “Guess I should get started on that.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and grinned at him. “Guess you should.”

His lips on hers again, he lifted her up to sit on her desk and he dropped down to his knees in front of her. Lee rose up, lips brushing against hers as his hands worked at her fatigues, pushing off her jacket and tanks, and making short work of her fly. Kara arched slightly to let him pull her pants and briefs down over her ass, off her legs, and toss them aside.

Lee gripped her hips, tugging her forward to the edge of the desk. He turned his head, planting warm, wet kisses on a trail from her knee on up, licking a broad stripe across the crease where her thigh met her body. She hooked her leg around his shoulder and nudged his head, pushing him against her center.

Kara drew in a breath to say… something, but it got lost in a haze of delight and died in a throaty moan as he touched his tongue to her clit, licking a light circle over it. Her head fell back as he repeated the motion, this time licking down to her entrance. Her hips bucked forward, urging him on. He pressed two fingers into her, starting a steady motion as his mouth closed over her clit. Kara was moaning, whispering to the gods, and within minutes coming apart around him, gasping and trembling and clutching his shoulders like she’d fly off into space if she didn’t.

Before she’d even stopped shaking, Lee was on his feet and out of his uniform in what had to have been a worlds’ record. He cupped his hand over her cheek, thumb brushing a soft line from her cheekbone to her jaw before leaning in to kiss her again. His hand slipped low between them, resting on the slight curve of her stomach and Kara arched in to him. Lee’s hardness pressed against her slick folds, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, drawing him closer to her. She looked up at him with a grin on her face. “You know, I think this is what got us into this mess in the first place.”

“Well.” He leaned forward, lips hovering inches from hers. “If we weren’t in this mess, I wouldn’t owe you.” And he pushed forward, burying himself inside her in one smooth thrust, and suddenly Kara remembered all the parts she didn’t mind about this whole baby-making ordeal. Lee thrust into her, smooth and strong and made her gasp every single time.

His hands were everywhere, caressing her, holding her, and gods it was nothing like their quick frak in a closet. This was something else entirely. His lips found that sensitive spot behind her ear and sucked hard as she rocked her hips into his. It was much, much better than last time, she thought as she felt her second orgasm building inside her. She pulled Lee close, his hand slipping down to her clit, bringing her off with a few quick strokes. She screamed his name and clenched tight around him and soon he was rushing headlong into his own release.

Sated and spent, they sagged against each other, Kara’s arms wrapped around Lee’s neck, with her head resting on his shoulder. If this was what it meant to have Lee in her life, she could really get used to it.

“Kara?” he asked, voice soft.

“Yeah?”

Lee drew in a deep breath. “Are we okay?”

She shifted against, fingers brushing against his bare chest. “Yeah. We’re okay.” She turned a smug smile up towards him. “I’m going to hit you ‘til you bleed when I have to give birth to this thing, but we’re okay.”

Lee bent down, resting his forehead against hers as he brushed a lock of sweaty gold hair back from her face. It was a far cry from a porch swing and a puppy, not the Colonial Dream by any stretch of the imagination, but Starbuck and Apollo and their baby sounded pretty damned good to her right now.

 

\--End--


	2. Not the Colonial Dream II

"Come in."

Lee could see Kara tense at the sound of the Old Man's voice. He placed his hand lightly on her shoulder and felt her take a steeling breath before pushing the hatch open.

"Good evening, Starbuck. Son." He said with a nod to each of them. If he was at all surprised by their visit, he didn't let on. "What can I do for you two?"

As his father rose from his seat, Kara shifted her weight from foot to foot beside him. She looked ready to break out into a sprint and run as far from this encounter as possible. Her hands were clenched at her sides, knuckles turning white.

"Sir, there's something I need to...something we need to talk to you about. I-... I'm..." Her gaze dropped to the floor and Lee brushed his hand against hers, hoping to ease some of her tension. In all honesty, he was surprised to see her so nervous—even if he’d been the one to insist on telling the Admiral as soon as possible, she’d been adamant about telling him, herself.

Lee reached out again to squeeze her hand lightly, and she squeezed right back, dropping it quickly before his father could notice. Kara raised her eyes, looked straight at the Admiral, and said it quickly, like ripping off a bandage. "I'm pregnant."

Adama’s gaze shifted from Kara to Lee and back, with a look in his eyes like he was trying to decipher some foreign language that Kara was speaking. After a moment of uneasy silence, he stepped forward, hands resting on Kara’s shoulders. Lee could see Kara fidget under the scrutiny. All he said, however, was “Are you alright?”

Kara gave a short nod. “Yes, sir. I’m... I’m fine.”

Everything about the Old Man’s demeanor was completely professional—Lee thought it seemed coldly detached, but it seemed to put Kara at ease. “How far along are you?”

“Ten weeks.”

A strange look crossed his father’s face as the numbers didn’t add up. Apparently the Old Man had made the same first conclusion Lee had, but Sam and his crew had only been rescued three weeks ago. “Are you going to tell me who the father is?”

Kara glanced Lee’s way, but it seemed that Adama was still a little bit slow on the uptake. Lee took Kara’s hand in his and looked his father in the eye. “That would be me.”

Lee was sure the temperature in the room dropped several degrees. His father went rigid and turned to Kara, with a stern countenance. “I need you to go down to sickbay. I want a full report on your condition from Cottle ASAP.”

“Yes sir,” Kara said, snapping off a salute before turning to leave.

As Lee made to follow her, his father’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “Lee, I need to have a word with you.” As soon as the hatch was shut behind Kara, the Old Man leveled a stern look that made Lee feel like he was ten years old. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Lee’s face flushed hot, a familiar anger bubbling up inside him. “You know, Dad, it’s really none of your business.”

“Of course it’s my business!” he snapped. “It is my business because my CAG is pregnant by someone who, ten weeks ago, was her commanding officer and her fiancé’s brother..”

“You think I don’t know all of that!?”

“No, I know you know. I just don’t know if you’re prepared to deal with the consequences of your actions this time.”

The words felt like a steel-toed boot to the gut. He hadn’t confessed his past mistakes with Gianne—getting her pregnant and shoving her away—just to have them thrown back at him like this. The very thought of abandoning Kara right now was enough to make him ill. “I’m not going to run away. Not from Kara.”

“You better not. She deserves better than that. The child deserves better than that.” Lee watched as his father reached for the bottle of whiskey he kept in his desk. Apparently the Admiral was taking a page from Tigh’s book on how to cope with upsetting news. He was watching so closely he was startled when his father spoke. “Do you love her?”

It wasn’t that Lee hadn’t thought about it, it was more that he’d actively forced himself not to think about it—tried to ignore the way he felt whenever she was near, how she could simultaneously be the object of his deepest frustrations and his greatest desires, how he trusted her to live up to her reputation in the cockpit and come back alive and whole after every fight because he couldn’t bear to think of the alternative. He dropped his gaze to the floor before looking back up to his father. “My life doesn’t feel right when she’s not in it.”

Adama raised his glass to his lips. “Does she love you back?”

Lee ran a hand through his hair, coming to rest at the back of his neck. This conversation was impossible to have without feeling like a teenager again—not that this was a conversation he’d had back then. The truth was Lee wasn’t sure at any given moment whether telling a pregnant Kara that he loved her would reassure her that he was there for her or send her running, let alone how she truly felt about him..

When no answer was forthcoming, his father mercifully changed this subject. “What are you two going to do when the baby is born?”

Lee stood up a bit straighter. “She said she was going to keep it.” Though she never said so, Lee’d gotten the distinct feeling that the decision was not set in stone and he pushed the thought aside. He watched as his father finished off the glass, and dearly wished he had a drink himself right now. “I saw all her medical and psych records back when I was CAG; I know about… I know this isn’t easy for her, and it’s her decision, so whatever she wants… she has my support.”

“And if she doesn’t keep it?”

Lee looked down, avoiding his father’s gaze. “I… I don’t know.”

“Lee,” he asked, voice firm and demanding. “Do you want this baby?”

“Yes!” Lee said with a conviction he didn’t even know he’d had. “Dad, it’s my child.”

“That didn’t stop you before. If you want you want this baby—really want this baby—you need to let her know that. You’re going to be a father, Lee. That child will be depending on you for everything. You can’t just run off when things get tough.”

Lee fought back a bitter laugh—that was some rich advice coming from him. “I won’t run away from my child,_ sir_.”

Lee turned to leave but once again his father’s voice stopped him. “Son?”

“What?”

There was a mournful quality to his voice. “Be a better father than I was.”

\---

Kara ran a towel through her damp hair, trying to focus on the clean smell of regulation soap on her skin and hair, instead of the steam and sweat, grease and fuel, being washed off in the showers—all smells that used to make her feel like she was exactly where she was meant to be, but nowadays set her stomach churning. Forcing the wave of nausea back, she tugged her pants up her thighs and pulled at the zipper—once… twice—she gritted her teeth in frustration as she pulled a third time, sucking in her breath.

_Frak, frak, frak, frak. _

“Hey, Starbuck,” Kat’s voice grated on her ears, despite the relatively light tone. “Better lay off the booze. Looks like you’re starting to get a beer belly.” Kara scowled, barely able to shout a venomous _go frak yourself_ before Kat had left the head—she was really off her game—and before she lost the battle with her stomach.

Part of her was grateful for her reputation for drinking, even though she hadn’t touched a drop of the stuff since she found out. It meant no one asked questions when she was kneeling huddled over the toilet.

“Sharon said the nausea wore off at around twelve weeks,” Helo said, kneeling beside her and rubbing small circles on her back.

“Great.” She sat back on her heels with a groan, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand. “Two more weeks to go.”

\---

_Attention. Pass the word to the CAG. Captain Thrace, report to the CO’s quarters. _

\---

“How are you feeling?”

Kara shifted slightly as she sat on the couch, tugging at the waistband of her pants. She’d finally been able to button them shut, but the fabric kept digging into her, making it impossible to breathe properly or sit comfortably no matter what she did. “I’ve felt better,” she admitted.

The Old Man just smiled at her and poured two glasses of water, holding one out to her. She thanked him quietly as she raised it to her lips. “I looked over Cottle’s report. Looks like everything is normal,” Adama said, taking a seat beside her on the couch. “There will be some limitations to your duty for the next couple of months.” It sounded like an apology.

“Believe me,” she said. “I know.”

“Good thing the cylons have supposedly given up. Won’t be much out there to shoot.” The Old Man was trying his hardest to make this all better and Kara laughed despite herself. “I suppose the biggest question right now is whether or not you want to try to arrange a transfer to _Pegasus_.”

Kara swallowed hard before setting her glass aside. “I’m… grateful for the offer, but I’m not exactly ready to think about playing house with Lee just yet.” She thought about the slight joy in daily driving Lee up one bulkhead and down the other with crazy demands she could write off as pregnancy hormones, about that idiotic, pathetic face he made when she knew he was thinking about how he got her into this mess, and of course about dragging him into bed every night and making him make it up to her over and over and over. She had to bite her cheek a bit to keep from smiling. It was all too much wishful thinking way too fast. “Besides, I have responsibilities here.”

“Well, provided you can find someone to run your training drills for you, you can stay on as CAG until it’s time for you to take maternity leave.” Kara was starting to feel cabin-feverish at just the thought of being laid up for weeks. Adama must have sensed her discomfort. “You’re not the only officer under my command who’s ever had a child, Kara.” Kara folded her hands in her lap, not really sure how to respond. “You know, after Zak passed, I thought about things that might have been, that would never happen… about grandchildren. Funny how life works—you never know what’s going to get thrown your way.”

Kara dropped her gaze into her lap. Kara’d ever thought about having kid’s with Zak—never had thought about having kids, period. But she couldn’t help the feeling that this wasn’t the way he wanted a grandchild, didn’t want hers and Lee’s child. Even if it was true, he didn’t say a word about it.

“By the way, Kara,” he said, rising to his feet. “I have something for you.” She noticed for the first time since she’d walked into the office, a pile of fabric folded nearly on his desk.

\---

The next day, Kara strode into the ready room, grinning to herself as the entire room fell into complete silence while she made her way up to the podium and proceeded to breeze through the morning briefing. Every once in a while she cast a look around at the sea of faces, and she could see a mix of disbelief, shock, amusement (the latter mostly from Helo). Kat’s face was the best by far—flushed bright red and squirming in her seat whenever she noticed the CAG was looking her way. At least Kara was getting something amusing out of all this.

Twice she caught two raptor pilots with their heads bowed together, whispering. The first time she let it slide, she was on a roll with detailing the new second CAP being implemented to patrol around the orbit of the planet. The second time she called them out. “Stubbs, Callan. Got something you wanted to share with the class?” A brief round of snickers rippled through the ready room.

“No, sir.” Callan’s denial earned him a death glare, as Kara stepped around the podium, hands planted firmly on her hips.

“On your feet, Lieutenant!” she snapped and he readily complied. “Now I want to know exactly what was so much more fascinating than my briefing.”

“We… we were just… we… _Weweretryingtofigureoutwhothefatherwas,sir_,” Callan said with a brief gesture towards the new maternity uniform that Kara now wore. She felt like she was wearing a frakking tent and it made her look a hell of a lot farther along than she actually was, and she could think of very few things that would be more humiliating.

Running her tongue across her teeth, Kara wordlessly resumed her position behind the podium; she stared down at her papers, studying them intently. She could feel the burn of every eye watching her as she thumbed through her papers. She glanced up and sought out Helo in the crowd, remembering a certain bet he’d told her about the other day. She turned a smirk to the rest of her captive audience, a perfect study in the art of one-upmanship. “The father is Apollo. Those of you who were in on the pool can talk to Gaeta _after_ your shift.” And without missing a beat resumed the briefing.

After the meeting, she dismissed the pilots, but asked Kat to stay behind.

“You wanted to talk to me, sir?” she asked, her face still hot with embarrassment. Kara kept her head down, flipping through papers and letting her stew in it a little bit longer, before she looked up, shoving a folder into Kat’s hands. “What are these?”

“Training drills I’ve worked out for the next two weeks. Just because the cylons said they’re giving up, doesn’t mean they are. I need my pilots ready when they show up.” Kara watched Kat rifling through the papers. “And since I’m not going to be getting in the cockpit any time soon I need someone out there who can run them for me. So you can either step up, or I’ll find someone else who will.”

“Yes sir,” Kat said, sticking the folder under her arm.

Dismissed, Kat turned to leave, taking three steps towards the door before turning back. “Starbuck?”

“What?” Kara asked with a roll of her eyes.

“You should’ve said something sooner, instead of letting people think you were just getting lazy and fat.”

“You want to tell me why that’s any of your business, Lieutenant?” Kara snapped. “No? Didn’t think so.”

She gathered up her papers before leaving the room. What the hell would’ve been the point of telling everyone? She didn’t need anyone’s frakking pity. Oh well, didn’t matter now, the secret was out; she ran her hand along the more forgiving fabric of her new pants—it was so much easier to breathe.

\---

It had been five days since Lee’s promise to be there for Kara and the baby—since he convinced her to come clean to her commanding officer, the baby’s grandfather—and he hadn’t had the chance to come and see her until now. He spent the entire raptor ride running through scenarios in his head. What if she had changed her mind? Decided that she didn’t want to be a mother and give the baby away. And what if she hadn’t? What if she was getting used to the idea? Kara said she didn’t know a thing about raising kids, but Lee didn’t have half a clue either—only knew he couldn’t leave her, couldn’t leave his kid the way his own father had done. Too many questions; too soon to answer any. So he sighed and sat back in his seat until they reached Galactica.

He found Kara jogging laps around C deck, face flushed, hair held back in a ponytail and slick with sweat, and gods, so beautiful. She rounded the corner, eyes locking on his, as she slowed her stride, and he felt like a dumb schoolboy who just couldn’t stop staring.

“Hey,” she panted, breaking the silence.

“Hey. How are you feeling?”

“Well,” she said, bracing one hand on the bulkhead as she stretched out her calf, her voice all too pleasant. “Now I only feel the need to vomit whenever I smell sweaty viper jocks mixed with engine grease, so pretty much every time I’m in the bunkroom or the rec room or the head. And it’s a good thing I’m not flying because I have to pee all the frakking time. How about you, Lee?”

“Well,” he said, running a hand through his hair, unsure of exactly how to answer her small tirade. “I am a little tired.”

“Good,” she grunted, stretching out her other leg. “Serves you right. Where the hell have you been?”

“Sorry, I’ve been busy. This whole permanent settlement thing is demanding a lot of my time,” he offered by way of apology, though it sounded lame even to his own ears. When her mood didn’t soften, he continued. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m spending a good twelve hours a day around President _Baltar_. I think that’s a fair punishment in and of itself.”

“Yeah, not quite.” Kara folded her arms across her chest. “Frak, Lee, you know, I actually got this crazy idea in my head when you said you were going to be here that you were actually going to _be_ here. Should’ve known better,” she muttered as she angled to move around him.

“Kara, wait,” he pleaded, catching her by the shoulders. “I promised I would back you up on this and I meant it, but this is the first chance I’ve had to get away all week. I just… want to make things okay.”

She looked up into his eyes with an unreadable expression on her face. “Prove it.” She didn’t move though, just kept staring at him like she was daring him to step up. And he wasn’t about to back down from a dare from Starbuck.

“I frakked up this week, but I promise from now on I’ll try harder.”

“No.”

He blinked. “What?”

“_Try_ is not an option for us now, Lee. We’re having a kid.” Her voice broke a little bit on the last word. “Okay? We’re stuck with it. So either be there, or don’t.”

Lee cupped his hands around her cheeks, locking eyes with her. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

\---

Lee still wasn’t there half the time. He said he moved around his schedule, sloughed some of his duties off on his XO especially in regards to settlement, but she still didn’t see him more than a few times a week, and was more or less ready to give up on relying on him when she started getting missives from him on the days he couldn’t make it over. Dumb, stupid little letters, telling her what was happening aboard Pegasus, telling her he was thinking of her, hoping that she was alright. Eventually, she started writing back.

And maybe the time apart was good because when they were together harsh words were kept to a minimum in lieu of tangled tongues and roaming hands. On the days when she felt like she was going crazy from not being able to fly, they’d go down to the firing range together and he’d watch her empty a clip or two and her frustration into the target.

Once, they went up to the observation deck and sat together, grumbling about Baltar’s stupid plans for the planet. He teased her mercilessly the day he saw her in her maternity blues and she, in turn, made him rub her feet despite his protests that they weren’t even swollen. Sometimes, they just sat in her office and talked while she worked out CAP rosters based on the ones he brought over from _Pegasus_’s CAG.

Of course, for every good day, there was a bad one right around the corner.

\---

Lee all but stormed into the bunkroom, not usually the way he started his visits. “Chief said he saw you down on the hangar deck for several hours.”

“So what?” Kara muttered, turning the page of the old tattered book she was staring at, not even reading.

“Every day for the past three weeks. Kara, what the hell were you doing down there?”

“Just making sure the knuckledraggers weren’t neglecting my bird. What’s your point, Lee?” She leveled a glare at him as she put the book aside. His jaw clenched tight and she barreled right on. “I can’t just sit around here on my ass like some frakking baby machine, Lee. I’m not just here to—”

“You’re not supposed to be down there. Cottle said the tylium fumes are bad for the baby.” He threw his hands in the air. “Frak, Kara, what were you thinking? Were you even thinking at all? For the gods’ sakes, you could’ve hurt the baby! You can’t be so self—”

“I don’t frakking need this. Don’t need you to tell me how to take care of my frakking kid, Lee. I can still do this on my own, you know.” And without another word she brushed past him and vanished out into the corridor.

Lee stewed for a good ten minutes, then followed, but after a methodical search of the ship, Kara was nowhere to be found. He even checked with Tyrol to make sure she hadn’t caught a raptor or a shuttle to gods-know-where.

In a last ditch effort, he went back to the bunkroom and found her pulling on her tanks. Her hair was dripping and her eyes were red and puffy, revealing more than she would ever tell him. “Kara…”

“Just get out,” she snapped, staring him down until he left.

He sent her a letter later that night, said he was sorry for yelling at her, told her to take care of herself.

She wrote back making no mention of his apology, just telling him he better show up for her next appointment with Cottle. Or else.

\---

Kara looked up as Lee rushed into sickbay. She had to give him credit, she wasn’t sure he was going to show up. “I’m not late, am I?” he asked, panting slightly.

“No,” Ishay said, not looking up from her work as she prepared for the sonogram. “You’re right on time.”

Lee’s gaze focused intently on the still blank monitor and Kara rolled her eyes. “Need me to hold your hand, Commander?”

Cottle had been harassing Kara about the sonogram for a while now, practically breathing down her neck to get the test done and finally she gave in. It was cold and sticky and she hated staring at her swollen belly. Ishay was attempting to point out the baby’s hands but it just looked like one big grey blob on the screen to Kara. She pointed to a little flutter on the screen and identified it as the baby’s heartbeat, and then asked her if she wanted to know the baby’s gender. Kara didn’t really care one way or the other and shrugged.

“It’s a girl.”

Kara played the words over in her head._ It’s a girl. _They were having a baby girl. She was going to have a daughter. No matter how many ways she tried to think about it, she couldn’t wrap her mind around it. She stared hard at the monitor, watching the flutter on the screen.

She didn’t even realize she had a bruising grip on Lee’s hand until he squeezed back.

\---

“Lee, what are you doing?”

“Just… give me a minute here.”

“Oh for frak’s sake—”

“I don’t want to hurt the baby.”

“You’re not going to hurt the baby, alright?”

“I just—”

“Gods! I’m still gonna be pregnant for four months and I’m not going through it without getting laid; now get over it and frak me already!”

“But—”

Kara let out a growl, grabbing him by the shoulders, as she swung him down to the bed and slid down over him.

\---

Lee slipped his hand down over Kara’s bare belly, and she must have been tired or just in a really good mood because she didn’t smack his hand away. A week after the ultrasound, Kara had finally started coming over to Pegasus, swayed by the fact that his quarters were far more convenient than her office and afforded them time to lie together in his rack, him pressed up against her back, his head resting against the back of hers, every once in a while dropping a kiss against her shoulder.

All of a sudden, Lee felt something beneath his hand, and Kara just turned her head to look at him when he jerked in surprise. “What?”

“Did… did she just kick?” he asked, moving his hand, trying to see if he could feel it again.

Kara shifted slightly. “Yeah, she’s been doing that lately, usually when I’m trying to sleep.”

Lee’s face broke into a bright smile as the baby kicked again—that was when it hit him. “We haven’t talked about names.”

Kara groaned as she rolled away from him. “Do we really need to talk about this?”

“She needs a name, Kara,” he protested, watching as she stood and shimmied back into her briefs.

“We still have four months. Plenty of time to come up with a name.” She tugged on her sweatpants, which she seemed to prefer to her maternity clothes and wore them as often as she could get away with it. “Besides, I’m the one doing all the work. I get to pick the name.”

Lee leaned back on his elbows and nodded. “Sounds fair. Do you have any ideas?”

Kara tugged her tanks over her head and turned back to face him. “Eris.”

Lee felt his jaw drop slightly. “Kara, you’re not naming our daughter Eris.”

“You just said I get to name the kid.”

“Yes, but… no, Kara, I’m not going to let you call her that.”

“Why not?” Kara asked, sitting down to wrestle on her boots. “She’ll be our own personal goddess of discord and chaos, screaming at all hours of the night to get fed and changed—which by the way is all on you, Apollo. Since I’ll be the one sitting in the cockpit and you’re just sitting around CIC all day, I’ll actually need my rest and my gods, Lee, you are way too easy.”

Her face broke out into a grin when she noticed the way his must have paled. Lee hadn’t even realized he was holding a breath until he let it out and was breathing normally again. “So you’re not naming her Eris?”

“Are you kidding? You think I want to curse her with a name like that?” She caught his face between her hands and pressed a long, lingering kiss to his lips, so that when she pulled back and said, “Midnight changing and feeding is still all on you, flyboy,” he was too breathless to argue.

Kara tugged on her sweatshirt, something in her demeanor softening. “I was thinking about Alexandra.”

“Alexandra,” he echoed back at her as he rose to his feet. “Defender of mankind? I like it.” A smile crossed his face as wrapped his arms around her, letting his hand drift over her stomach again. His child had a name now, he’d seen her, and suddenly everything was becoming very real, very fast. He was going to be a father. Still, part of it made him seize up, a low strum of fear rushing in his veins remembering how badly he’d ended things with Gianne and never had the chance to make it right. With so many people settling on New Caprica, it seemed everyone was getting a fresh start, a second chance—and this was his. “Alexandra it is.”

\---

Kara climbed into her rack alone that night. It took her forever to fall asleep lately since the kid… since Alex seemed to have her own ideas about when she wanted to sleep and did a good job of letting Kara know.

The bunkroom felt colder than usual. Kara pulled her blankets up to her chin, but for some reason she just couldn’t get warm. Her eyes slide shut and she was invaded by the memory of lying pressed up against Lee, his arms wrapped around her, and just how good it felt. Gods, she missed him. And that’s when it hit her. She wanted that. She wanted him, and not just physically.

For years, the Old Man had been the closest thing she had to family—all her blood relations turned out to be complete failures in that department. It hadn’t been something that had even crossed her mind since she agreed to marry Zak—a shared life with someone else, belonging. She wasn’t quite sure if it was strange or appropriate that now she wanted to share her life with Lee—with Lee and their child.

And yet, here she was, falling asleep alone. Again.

\---

Kara was convinced that she was going to lose her mind if she had to make it through this evening sober, and since that was the only option available to her, she grudgingly resigned herself to the inevitability. The entire groundbreaking ceremony had been just one big boring speech after another and there wasn’t much more she could do but sit. All the military senior staff had pretty much been required to show up. Even so, Kara had still been planning to skip out until Lee had practically begged her to go and she didn’t have half a clue why. She hadn’t even seen him since before the sun went down.

“Is this seat taken?”

Kara looked up to see Laura Roslin standing by the bench with a glass in her hand. Kara shook her head, moving down a bit. “No. Go ahead, Madame P—”

“Laura is just fine,” she said with a warm smile as she sat down beside her. “Lovely weather this evening.”

Kara raised an eyebrow at her. “Guess so.”

“The night sky is really quite beautiful when you can actually see it,” Roslin said, raising the glass to her lips.

Kara could smell the alcohol from where she sat and turned her gaze away to the crowd. “Get a lot of rain down here?”

“No, not really. Just a lot of clouds. It’s a shame though, I used to love the rain back on Caprica.”

“Yeah… me too.”

The two of them lapsed into silence for a long awkward moment before Laura sat up a little bit straighter, hands folded neatly in her lap. “May I ask you a personal question, Captain?”

Kara regarded her with a wary eye, but said, “Shoot.”

“If it wasn’t for the law, would you be pregnant right now?”

And there it was. Kara had to admit it was a question she’d asked herself at least a dozen times in the last seven months, and she’d never really come up with any solid answer. On one hand, the Gods didn’t exactly approve of abortion; on the other hand, it’d just be another on the long list of sins that made up her life. “I don’t know. There are a lot of reasons I’m pregnant right now, can’t really say that the law is one of them. Besides, I never was one for following rules.” Laura gave a slow nod, Kara couldn’t tell if it was understanding or sympathetic. “Why?”

“Let’s just say it wasn’t my proudest political moment.”

Before the conversation could get any further, Lee pushed his way out of the crowd towards them, saying something about getting caught up in a conversation with Gaeta who couldn’t seem to get the idea through his head that this was supposed to be a party, not a business meeting. Kara rolled her eyes—another brilliant excuse; but Lee took her hand and smiled. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

They wandered away from the town, talking about pointless things for a while, before Lee dug his hands into his pockets. “So, Captain Taylor has been looking to muster out, move down here.”

Kara rolled her eyes. “Such a shame, really gonna miss that guy.” She laughed and Lee laughed with her. “You gonna let him?”

“Actually, yeah. I told him he’d have to wait a few more months though, I had to find a new CAG before he could go.”

“Months? It’s going to take you months to find a new CAG? Must not be looking that hard, Lee.”

“Well,” he said, coming to a stop. Kara stopped a few paces after he had and turned back to face him. There was something low and sweet and longing in his voice. “I have someone particular in mind.” He stepped towards her and held her hands in his own. “I thought it might be easier for me to actually be there for you if we could actually be in the same place. Especially since you already volunteered me for midnight feeding and changing. What do you say, Kara?”

She’d like to say she hadn’t thought about transferring to _Pegasus_ since she turned down the Admiral’s offer months ago, but that would be a lie. She thought about it every time she lay down in her rack at night, alone, wondering if Lee actually wanted her in his life. But right now, the way Lee was looking at her made that doubt fade away, drew her closer until she angled her lips over his, fusing their mouths together. They kissed long, slowly, her tongue sliding into his mouth as he cupped his hands around the back of her head, and she wanted this moment never to end. Never wanted to be apart from him. Kara slid her arms around his neck, pulling him closer.

This was everything she wanted.

Finally gasping for breath, Lee drew back just enough to rest his forehead against hers and she shut her eyes. “Love you so much,” he murmured, pressing gentle kisses along her cheeks, her eyelids, the bridge of her nose, her lips, and pulled back once more.

Her eyes fluttered open to lock onto his gaze, a smile hovered on her lips. “Love you, too.”

\---

Kara moved on to _Pegasus_ on her first day of maternity leave—she’d argued with Cottle about it, but the old coot had insisted that at eight months it was time for her to take a break. No sooner had she set her duffle down in Lee’s quarters—now her quarters too, she figured—than Lee’s hands were all over her, wandering over curves, mouth hot against hers, until they tumbled into his… their rack. Kara woke up the next morning with Lee curled around her body, his feet felt like ice where they pressed against her calf, and he’d managed to steal all of the covers over the course of the night. Lying there in his… their quarters, she realized that this was going to be every morning from now on.

And she liked it.

\---

Alexandra Gaia Thrace-Adama was born at 0945 three days before she was due. Kara kept her word about hitting Lee during the delivery, accompanied by some rather colorful and inventive cursing if she said so herself, and she was pretty sure Lee was bleeding from the scratches on his arm.

Cleaned off, swaddled in a blanket, and still wailing loudly, the newborn hovered in front of her, Cottle holding the baby out to be taken. After a moment of hesitation, he grumbled, “You’re not going to break her,” and all but pushed the little girl into Kara’s arms.

Kara stared down at the child, her child—hers and Lee’s—rocking her slightly, and she finally stopped bawling. She could see the resemblance to him, the little dark wisps of brown hair on her head, and a little bit in her nose too—tiny as it was it still looked like Lee’s. And from the way she’d been crying, Kara could tell she was a bit of a loud mouth. Obviously she got that from her. She grinned.

But then, the baby blinked open her eyes, big, hazel eyes that Kara knew too well, had seen them in the mirror her entire life, and yet… different. So bright and… gods, the only word she could think of was innocent. “Hi, Alex,” Kara breathed.

And even though the war had been over for seven months, it was still a hell of a world to be bringing a kid into. She pulled her daughter tighter against her chest and felt something seize her. She still had no clue how to be a mother, no idea how to raise a kid, no belief that suddenly everything was going to be okay—but suddenly she had a firm resolve: she wasn’t going to let anything or anyone hurt this child. Ever.

Kara raised one finger to trace along the tip of Alexandra’s nose, her cheek, the small shell of her ear. She barely took notice of Lee stepping up alongside her bed, his hand on her shoulder. One of Alex’s little hands caught Kara’s finger, clutching with what seemed like all her might. Kara flicked her gaze towards Lee. “She’s got a hell of a grip.”

“You surprised? Look who her mother is,” he said with a grin, brushing a lock of hair back from Kara’s face. He was practically glowing as he looked down at his daughter. “May I?”

“Mmm…” Kara shook her head. “Not yet.”

Lee lowered himself to sit on the edge of the bed, his thigh resting against hers. “Come on, Kara, you’ve had her for nine months, I think it’s my turn for a while.”

“It’ll be your turn when I say it’s your turn.” She grinned.

Lee leaned in, his lips brushing lightly against hers before pulling back to look at her and their little girl. He had one braced by Kara’s head, the other draped over her and holding Alex’s hand. He was almost breathless as he looked at the two of them and whispered, “Yes, sir.”

\--end--


	3. Part 3A

“Kara.” No response. “Kara.”

Lee cracked an eye open to look at Kara lying beside him. She was completely still, but he could tell by her breathing that she was already awake. Besides, it would be nearly impossible to sleep through the noise that Alexandra was making. Lee groaned and nudged Kara with his knee.

“Kara!”

“What?” she groaned, pulling the covers up around her shoulders.

“The baby’s crying.”

“I can hear that.” She rolled over to face him, but didn’t open her eyes. “What’re you going to do about it?”

Lee propped himself up on his elbow at that. “What am _I_ going to do?” he parroted.

“It’s your turn,” Kara grumbled. It was dark, but Lee was convinced he saw her lips quirk into a grin.

“I have to be in CIC in three hours and I’d like to get some sleep before then.”

Her eyes snapped open. “I got up the last _three_ nights in a row.”

“Kara—”

“I don’t frakking care, Lee. You just sit on your ass in CIC all day. Unlike you, I need some frakking sleep.”

Lee lay there with his jaw slack, ready to start up with another round of the “you have no idea what I do all day” lecture, when another piercing wail from across the room cut his thought process short. If he wanted to get any sleep tonight, he was going to have to take care of it himself.

He shoved the covers aside and headed for Alexandra’s crib. The six-month-old lay on her back, her hands balled into fists, letting out shriek after shriek. “It’s okay, Alex. Daddy’s here,” he muttered, scooping her up into his arms. He checked her diaper first thing—dry and clean.

That left two options, hunger and attention. Part of him was hoping for the first option. Alex had recently figured out that crying meant Mom or Dad was going to come and hold her—in fact, Lee was convinced it was becoming something of a game to her. She would stop crying soon, but the second Lee put her back in the crib she would just start up again.

He rocked her gently in his arms for a few minutes, but she didn’t stop crying. Hunger it was. Lee glanced over to the bed—Kara was not going to be happy about this. Well, she was just going to have to deal with it; it’s not like he was actually equipped to deal with this particular problem.

“Kara?”

“What?”

“I think she’s hungry.”

“There are bottles for a reason, Lee.”

“I gave her the last one before I put her to bed.”

In the complete silence, Lee was sure he could hear Kara plotting his demise. He heard a rustle of sheets as Kara sat up. “Oh, for frak’s sake. Bring her here.”

Lee felt a wave of relief rush through him as he carried the baby over to their rack.

“Come here, nugget,” Kara muttered, easing Alex out of his arms and settling the baby into the crook of her arm. Lee settled down beside them on the mattress. He watched as Kara tugged her sports bra out of the way. Once Alex had latched on and started to eat, Kara let her eyes slide shut. A few moments of silence passed before Kara let out a quiet hiss of pain and adjusted Alex in her arms.

“What is it?”

“She’s got fangs,” Kara groaned. “We gotta get this kid eating solid food; she can’t just keep chomping on my tit for the rest of her life.”

Lee reached out, brushing a lock of dark hair back from Alexandra’s forehead. “Alright, I’ll check the book and see what it says.”

Kara’s eyes snapped open to level him with a death glare. She always gave him that look whenever he mentioned it. He’d managed to get his hands on one of the last childcare books left in existence—and considering the fact that they had entered into this whole parenting thing without any idea how to raise a child, Lee thought it was one hell of a good find. Fortunately, she also looked like she was too tired to argue.

When Alex was full, Lee carried her back to her crib and tucked her worn, gray blanket around her. “Gods, I can’t wait until she actually sleeps through the night.”

“We live on a frakking battlestar, Lee,” Kara said, settling back into bed, turning her back to him. “Day, night—pretty much the same thing.”

Lee walked back over to the bed, settling down as well. “Well, eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, just once.”

“You know,” she muttered into her pillow. “If you’d just let your dad babysit her for a while, we could actually get some sleep. But you just—“

“The book says that at six months they start to feel separation anxie—”

“Lee! If I have to hear one more sentence that starts with ‘The book says,’ I am going to smack you in the face with the book.” She gave a firm yank on the covers, successfully hoarding them all for herself.

“I just don’t want to put her though anything more than she’s already going to have to go through,” he said, pulling at the blanket. Kara refused to relinquish her grip.

“She’s gonna have to be apart from us someday, Lee. And it’s not like we’re giving her to some stranger. The Old Man can have some quality time with his only grandkid.” Kara rolled back over; her voice took on a wicked tone. “And you and I could have a whole night to ourselves.” Her arm snaked out from beneath the sheets, brushing over his chest and sliding down his abdomen.

_Well_, he thought, considering the way her fingers tugged at the waistband of his briefs, _they_ were _both awake_.

As Lee leaned in to kiss her, she abruptly rolled over once again. “But, I guess that’s not gonna happen any time soon.”

Lee let out a long sigh as he lay back, staring up into the darkness. He reached over, trying to pry some of the covers away from Kara, but to no avail. _Frak it_, he thought as he closed his eyes. It wasn’t worth fighting over. He had to get up in two hours anyway.

====================

Kara bit at the end of her pen, her eyes glazed over as she stared at the pile of CAP schedules that needed to be completed. Yet another _Pegasus_ pilot had mustered out, moved down to that pathetic pebble of a planet. Sure, she’d taken a few trips down there since they started settling, but Kara was certain that she’d lose her mind if she had to live down there.

Her last trip down there, she’d dropped in on Chief—Galen, she wasn’t used to calling him that—and Cally, who was waddling around looking like she was going to pop any day, even though she said she wasn’t due for another month. Galen went off to a union meeting, leaving Kara to discuss the whole _mother_ thing with Cally. The former specialist cooed over Alexandra—who was more than thrilled with all the attention—while she talked about how much she was looking forward to raising her child on solid ground with fresh air and sunlight.

It was the only time Kara really understood why anyone would want to live down there. For a moment, Kara thought about Alex, running barefoot in the grass with sun shining down on her while she played with a furry animal of some sort, maybe a dog. Of course, the planet she had in mind was never New Caprica. But it didn’t matter now. She shook the thought out of her head. Earth was out of the question, and Alex’s primary form of movement was dragging herself on her arms in a commando crawl. She didn’t have time to think about this kind of thing now, she had work to do—maybe someday, but not now.

Kara pinched the bridge of her nose. She was staring down at the papers and willing the schedules to work themselves out when she heard a muted fussing noise coming from Alex’s crib. _Frak_. No, not again, not now. Maybe she’d fall back to sleep…

No such luck; the fussing turned into a full-out cry. Kara sighed and pushed the papers aside before walking over to Alex’s crib.

“Come on, what’s wrong?” she asked, leaning on the railing. “I already fed you and changed you. What else do you want?” She couldn’t wait until the kid was talking and could actually tell her what she needed—she had no idea when that was going to be, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to ask Lee to consult the book. He had been treating the frakking thing like scripture since he’d found it and refused to do anything for the kid without consulting it first.

Kara sighed, and scooped Alex up into her arms, rocking her gently. Almost instantly, the little girl stopped crying. Kara blinked and shook her head. “Well, that was easy.” Not quite. The moment that she settled her daughter back into her crib, she started crying again. “Oh, come on!” Kara picked her up again, and once again the crying stopped.

Kara looked down at the baby in her arms. Alex stared up at her with wide hazel eyes and started burbling a string of content sounds. “So, you just want me to hold you? Is that it?” Alex let out a squealing laugh and clapped her hands together. “Okay, okay, you can come sit with Momma while she works. Will that make you happy?”

Alex made another noise that Kara interpreted as yes. She sat back down at her desk, letting Alex sit on her lap. Of course, it was really too much to ask that the kid would sit still and let her work. The moment that Kara picked up her pen again, Alex reached for it, trying to take it out of her hand. “Okay, Alex, Momma needs that. I have to work.”

Kara pried Alex’s little hand away from the pen, wrapping one arm around the little girl as she went back to work. She’d gotten a grand total of one CAP slot figured out when her daughter reached up, caught a fistful of Kara’s hair, and tugged. “Ow,” Kara said as she flinched. It was more surprising than painful, but Alexandra let out a delighted laugh and tugged again.

“I really should’ve named you Eris,” Kara muttered, trying to extract her hair from her daughter’s hand. “You want me to pay attention to you, I get it. But Momma has to work.”

“_Ma! _”

“Alex,” she warned, but the little girl didn’t stop.

“_Ma. Ma. Ma. Mama_.” Alexandra hit her hand against Kara’s leg, chanting the syllable over and over again. It didn’t seem like she was planning on stopping any time soon.

Kara set her pen aside. Work could wait for a little while. Kara settled down on the metal grating of the floor with her legs splayed. She settled Alex on the floor so she sat between her legs facing her. Alex laughed and smiled and clapped her hands together excitedly. She looked so happy, like this was the best thing that had ever happened to her. Kara held up her hands in front of Alexandra, and the baby started to hit her hands against them as she continued to babble content sounds.

“Alex.” The little girl looked up to meet her eyes; she recognized her own name. Kara and Lee had been doing this parenting thing for a while now, but it had felt like a routine—your basic childcare and maintenance checklist—food, diaper, attention, almost like a post-flight check.

From the moment Alex had been born, Kara’d known she wanted to protect her, didn’t want anything or anyone to hurt her, but this was the first time Kara realized that she wanted more than that. Alex was _happy_. She was sitting there, smiling and laughing—smiling and laughing because _her mother_ was playing with her. Alex was looking at her like clapping hands was the greatest thing in the worlds.

Struck by pure curiosity, Kara scooted back a few feet. Alex sat in her spot for a few moments before she leaned forward and pulled herself across the floor on her arms until she was sitting in front of Kara again. She let out a squeal of laughter, and Kara backed up a few more feet. Sure enough, Alex started crawling towards her again.

She didn’t know how long she spent crawling around on the floor with Alexandra, but she distantly heard the hatch slide open and shut again. When Kara finally looked up, Lee was leaning against the bulkhead just watching the two of them with a ridiculous smile on his face. Kara cast a look at the clock and realized she had to be on CAP in twenty minutes.

Kara quickly stood, scooping Alex into her arms and clearing her throat. “Your daughter’s a little tyrant,” she said as Lee walked over to them.

“Oh, really?” he asked with a laugh in his voice.

“Uh-huh. Wouldn’t let me do my work.” Between Lee’s grin and Alexandra’s excited sounds, Kara was completely unable to fight back her grin.

“Looked like it was such a hardship.”

“Right.” Kara passed Alexandra into Lee’s arms and gave him a peck on the lips and planted a quick kiss on Alex’s forehead. She lingered for a moment as Lee slid one arm around her waist, surprised by how much she liked the familiarity of this, but she had a schedule to stick to. “I gotta get going. I’ll see you two tonight.”

=====================

Kara remembered how badly she’d itched to get back in the cockpit when she was pregnant with Alexandra, but there had been no sign of the Cylons for almost a year now. Nothing to look for, nothing to fight—just flying circles around the few remaining ships in the fleet and the planet below. Week after week it was endless CAP after CAP, and with fewer and fewer pilots, each patrol was longer and longer, and after six hours straight in the cockpit, no stunt, no race, nothing at all could alleviate the boredom—plus, having someone out there on your wing was a luxury nowadays.

It was at the beginning of the seventh hour, after a race out past the Zephyr and back, that Kara paged Showboat over the comm. “Come on, let’s take another pass around the planet and pack it in.”

Once they’d touched down on _Pegasus_, Showboat called out to her from across the deck. “Triad game in the rec room tonight. You coming?”

“Maybe later.” The unfinished CAP rosters and training drills hovered at the edge of her mind. The paperwork had been her least favorite part of being a flight instructor, and it certainly was the worst part of her job right now.

“The joys of motherhood?” Case asked with a slight laugh. Kara shrugged—_what can you do?_—and headed back to the Commander’s quarters, all the while running through names in her head and dying for a long shower in the private head.

She could tell that something was off the moment the hatch slid open and she stepped into the room. All of her paperwork was gone, and in place of the mess was a bottle of ambrosia and two glasses, already half-filled. Lee was sitting on the couch, flipping through his beloved childcare book. He looked up at her, grinning.

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Lee? What’s going on?”

“Notice anything?” he asked as he got up and walked over to the desk.

She cast a quick glance around and it suddenly clicked into place. “Where’s Alex?”

“Spending time with her grandfather.” Lee smiled broadly as he handed her one of the glasses. “He came over on a Raptor a few hours ago. I packed up her blanket and enough bottles to last at least thirty-six hours.”

“Thirty-six hours?” she said, grinning as she downed her glass. “Got something big planned?”

“Well, I figured we haven’t been alone in a while. Better make the best of it.” Her body hummed at the thought of a full day and a half of not getting out of bed, frakking until way past the point where everything pleasantly ached. Come to think of it, when she was pregnant, they’d barely been able to catch time together, living on separate ships. And after the baby came there was still barely time to squeeze in a quickie, not to mention having to keep the noise down so they wouldn’t wake the baby. They’d never once had the opportunity for marathon sex. Oh yeah, this was going to be good.

Lee took a sip from his glass and leaned in. His mouth sealed over hers in a long, hungry kiss. Her free hand moved to cup the back of his head, holding him to her as she licked into his mouth. His taste was as intoxicating as the liquor. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she dimly remembered that she had schedules that needed to be finished by 0800. She muttered so between kisses along his jaw.

“Already taken care of,” he told her, his hand slipping up under her tanks.

Somehow, she wasn’t sure, they managed to drain their glasses without taking their hands off each other and they’d completely shed their clothes by the time they tumbled into their rack. Lee rolled onto her, his solid weight pressing her into the thin mattress, and slipped a hand between her legs. “Gods, Lee,” she gasped.

She could tell this was going to be a very good thirty-six hours.

====================

Sighing contently after round three, Kara lay half-sprawled over Lee, tangled in the sheets. He bent his head to press a kiss against her temple, stroking his hand over her back. She seemed strangely quiet now. Lee frowned.

“Something on your mind?” he asked.

Kara leaned her head into the crook between his neck and his shoulder. “Alex called me ‘Mama’ today.”

“Funny. She called me the same thing.” Kara laughed, the puff of air was warm against his skin. He stared over in the direction of Alexandra’s empty crib, then up at the ceiling. “Think she’s doing okay?”

“I’m sure she’s fine. Aren’t grandparents supposed to be the ones kids love because they spoil ’em rotten?”

Silence again as Kara traced her hand over his chest, absent circles in the sweat cooling on his skin. It was strange, just the two of them for once. If it weren’t for Alexandra, would they even be together like this? Kara’d left Sam when she found out she was pregnant—if there had been no baby, would she still be with him? Would he still be with Dee? He couldn’t fathom it—couldn’t imagine his life without Kara as his lover and partner, without their child—their child.

Kara’s hand flexed and curled against his chest, and she flinched slightly when he closed his hand over hers. Something wasn’t quite right, and from the look on Kara’s face, Lee knew it was going to be one of those things that she’d tell him about if and when she wanted to. If there was one thing Lee had learned about Kara Thrace, it was that pressing the issue was the fastest way to land himself in the doghouse.

The silence stretched as Lee brushed his thumb over Kara’s knuckles. When she spoke, it was almost too soft to hear. “My mother broke every one of my fingers.” He said nothing while she murmured a story, a cycle of revenge between mother and daughter that ended with a young girl’s hand slammed in the closet door. “Strange thing is…I used to know why she did it, but I don’t have any frakking clue anymore.”

He pulled her hand up to his mouth, kissing each knuckle in turn. Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment, her breathing harsh in the quiet room. But then she swung her leg over his hips, sliding over him, and pressed her lips to his. They kissed, long and languid, his hands settling on her hips. Lee wasn’t sure what he’d done, exactly, but apparently it had worked.

If someone had told him a year and a half ago that this was where he’d be right now, he would’ve laughed in their face, but he couldn’t imagine it any other way. Sometimes Lee didn’t have a clue how they were making this family work, but clearly they were doing something right.


	4. Part 3B

The only sounds in CIC were the blaring of alarms and the sound of Alexandra crying. Lee clutched her to his chest and ran a hand over her back, absently trying to calm her as he took stock of the room.

“All civilian ships present and accounted for,” Hoshi said in that even _Pegasus_ officer tone, the one that didn’t second guess, because second-guessing got you dead. All civilian ships. All the ones that were left. “DRADIS is clear. No sign of the Cylons, sir.”

Through all the noise, all Lee could think to say was, “Stand down to condition two.” Alex wailed. “And get Captain Thrace up here immediately.”

He stepped out into the corridor just beyond CIC. The last thing any of them needed in there right now was a crying child, Lee thought as he replayed the last few minutes in his head. _Minutes?_ Had it really only been minutes ago that they’d been on that endless planetary patrol around New Caprica, pointlessly on the lookout for an enemy that wasn’t going to return?

The pounding of boots on metal floors jerked Lee out of his thoughts. He looked up to see Kara striding towards him, eyes wide but mouth set into a firm line. “Lee? What the hell happened?”

He all but pushed Alexandra into Kara’s arms as she let out another round of shrieks. “Her first FTL jump. I think it scared her.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Her voice was bitter, but she curled her arms protectively around the baby as she stepped in towards him, standing barely a foot from him now.

“I’m sure the Admiral is working on some speech to broadcast to the Fleet,” Lee said, turning back towards CIC. “You’ll hear it from him.”

Before he could move, she caught him by the shoulder and spun him back towards her. “Don’t avoid the frakking question, Lee. _What happened_?”

He needed time, he needed to think, he didn’t need a crying child or a frakking interrogation, and Kara clearly wasn’t going to back off until she knew. Through gritted teeth, he said, “The Cylons came back.”

Kara sucked in a breath like the words had been a punch to the gut. The silence that stretched between them was filled with hiccupping sobs from Alexandra, who was seeking comfort that she just couldn’t find.

It didn’t take long for Kara to find her voice. “Why didn’t you launch the alert fighters?”

“Do you really think _your_ pilots would’ve survived even a minute out there?” he snapped. He could feel the venom in his own voice, and he wasn’t even sure where it had come from, but he could see the blow land. Kara’s face twisted, jaw clenching and eyes narrowing. It had been at least two weeks since Kara’d run a single training drill, and he didn’t know how Kat was handling _Galactica_’s air group, but even if they were twice as prepared as _Pegasus_’s, it still wasn’t saying much. Kara had heard his words as an attack on her abilities, but he didn’t have time to get into this now, didn’t have time to deal with her. She’d just have to wait. “Dismissed,” he snapped.

“Lee!”

“Sir,” Hoshi said from the entrance to CIC. “The Admiral is requesting to speak with you.”

With that, he disappeared and Lee turned back to Kara. “I said _dismissed_, Captain.”

Wordlessly, Kara adjusted Alexandra in her arms, and snapped off the most insolent salute that Lee’d ever witnessed. His stomach lurched as he watched Kara walk off down the corridor, the sounds of Alex fussing growing quieter and quieter until they couldn’t be heard at all. He turned on his heel and strode back into CIC.

All eyes were on him as he strode over and picked up the receiver. “This is _Pegasus_ Actual, go ahead.”

“_Lee_,” his father’s voice came over the line, cracking with barely contained grief. “_Thirty-nine thousand people. There were thirty-nine thousand people on that planet. _”

“And there are two thousand people on these ships. If we’d stayed, they would’ve been the first to die.” He remembered Kara’s panicked look when she’d approached him in the corridor. It was a safe bet that the rest of the crew were the same—lost, confused… He wouldn’t be surprised if riots started breaking out in the next few minutes. “They need to know what happened.”  
The rest of the day was a blur. He arranged for a Raptor to _Galactica_ to meet with his father, who was already talking about plans to get in touch with the people on the ground, find out what had happened, and figure out a way to get them back. The Admiral was so sure that the Cylons had not wiped out the planet’s population, but in the back of his mind, Lee couldn’t help but think that they were already gone.

When Lee finally returned that night, the walk from the hangar deck to his quarters was interminable. The corridors seemed to stretch on endlessly before him, each footfall accompanied by his memory of the Admiral’s speech ringing in his head.

_Over the last year, we’ve lost sight of our duties. Peacetime has made us forget. Forget what we are up against. We allowed the enemy to catch us with our guard down, and we took the only avenue open to us at that time—escape. But sometimes, you need to fall back to live to fight another day. _

When the hatch to his quarters slid open, he could see Kara sitting at the desk, intent on whatever she was writing. She didn’t look up as he approached her, just greeted him with a cool, even voice. “Commander.”

“Kara.” She looked up at the sound of her name. “I’m sor—”

“Don’t frakking apologize.” Kara’s voice was like steel and Lee felt his spine stiffen. Looked like they were going to have to have this fight after all. She pushed herself back from the desk, getting to her feet. She looked him straight in the eye. In a split second he knew that the look she was giving him was not bitter or angry, but the solid resolve and fighting spirit he’d come to know and love from her. “You made the right call, Lee. My pilots would’ve died out there today; we didn’t have nearly enough manpower or preparation to take on five basestars. We were not ready for an attack like this. But we’re going to get ready.”

Lee watched her face, jaw set in determination, as her words sank in. Launching the alert fighters would’ve meant sending her out into the fight, sending her out into a fight from which she probably wouldn’t have returned. It was completely selfish and wrong, but he had never been more glad to make the call to jump. The thought hadn’t actually hit him until now, and he suddenly felt the need to hold her. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her against his chest. Her arms slid around his waist, her body molding to his. He could feel her chest rising against his with each breath.

They had made it through this day alive, and Lee had never been more grateful in his life.

  
====================

“Starbuck. Starbuck! Come in, Starbuck, do you read me?” Kat reached over and smacked Kara in the arm. “What the hell has gotten into you? You need to get your head in the game.”

Kara jerked out of her thoughts in time to hear Kat rattling on something about how she “might be off playing house with Apollo, but—”

“Kat!”

“What?”

“Your plan sucks.”

That shut her up for a moment. But only for a moment. “What the frak are you talking about?”

Kara braced her hands on the tactical table, staring down at the glowing surface and the plastic figurines arranged according to Kat’s so-called strategy. “You’ve got the entire frakking thing riding on having two battlestars in the fight. You wanna take this to the Admiral and the Commander? We've got to do this with one.”

Kat’s eyebrow arched upwards. “Why only one? We need all the strength we can get.”

“This fight is never going to be about strength—the Cylons have us beat in the numbers a hundred times over. We’re not going to win this fight by the numbers.”

“That’s why we have them fighting on two fronts,” she replied, tapping the table to show the split forces.

“A mission like this, we want to keep the actual fighting to a minimum. It’s all about the misdirection.” Kara tapped absently at one of the Raptor figurines on the table. Kat narrowed her eyes. Frak, she did not want to deal with this right now. “Any word back about getting in touch with the people on the ground?”

“Not yet.”

Yet. Yet was good. Yet meant Kat was still holding out hope, still believed that the people down on the planet were still alive—even after three and a half months. Most of the people aboard _Galactica_ seemed to believe that somehow, the people left behind had survived. Kara picked up the Raptor figurine turning it over in her hands. It felt good to be around other people who believed in this mission, in what they were doing.

Kat crossed her arms over her chest. “You better have some brilliant plan cooking in there, Starbuck. I’m getting a little tired of this staring at nothin’ crap. All this talk about deception, you got any bright ideas?”

Kara stared down at the plastic in her hand. What better way to trick the Cylons than to frak with their DRADIS? Keep the combat to a minimum. “Yeah. I got a couple.” They didn’t get into the details, not the specifics, but with the right drones, they might just be able to replicate the DRADIS signature of a battlestar, or at least close enough that it’d read that way through the mess of radiation surrounding the planet. The rest of the plan was going to have to wait until they had some idea of the situation on the ground.

“Starbuck,” Kat said. “You still haven’t said why we needed to plan this op with only one battlestar.”

“Just need to keep all our bases covered.”

It was getting near 0200 when Kara finally decided to head back to _Pegasus_. The Raptor ride back seemed to take all of a couple of minutes. When she got back to the CO’s quarters, Lee was hanging up his uniform, getting ready for bed. He looked up at her as she stepped through the hatch and dropped a pile of papers onto the desk. “Long day?”

“You can say that again,” she muttered. Silence hung heavily in the room as Kara looked towards the crib where Alexandra was sound asleep. “She give you any trouble today?”

“No more than usual,” he said, sitting down on the rack. “She’s reminding me of you more and more every day.”

Kara raised an eyebrow. “How’s that?”

“If I take my eyes off of her for two seconds, she’ll try some crazy stunt and nearly give me a heart attack.” Alex wasn’t walking yet, but she’d figured out how to start scooting around while she was holding onto things. It also meant a lot of falling down—Lee was always the one to panic, but after the first couple of times, Kara’d figured out that the kid was pretty durable; she didn’t even cry when she fell.

Lee settled back into the mattress, watching her as she shrugged out of her blue jacket and put it away in the locker. “You coming to bed?”

“Yeah, just give me a minute.” She shed her tanks and tossed them into a pile in the corner of the locker. She’d deal with it later—right now she was tired. “We’re working on a new plan.”

Lee’s voice was strained and even, that ridiculous quiet tone of voice he got whenever they talked about the mission to rescue those left behind on New Caprica. “Oh, really?”

“Going in with a single battlestar, just _Galactica_. Better to depend on just one.” She unzipped her pants and let them drop to the floor before kicking her legs out of them. When Lee didn’t respond, she just kept talking. “Keep _Pegasus_ watching over the civilian fleet; it’s what you want, right?” Still no reply. “Kat was dead set on using both, but I figured I’d do you a favor.”

Lee scoffed. A rustle of covers told Kara that he’d rolled over so he didn’t have to look at her. “The only favor you could do for me over there would be to talk my father out of this _clusterfrak_.”

“Clusterfrak,” she echoed. He’d said it. He’d finally said it out loud. Kara’d known how Lee felt about the mission—just something from the way he’d been acting lately, they way he found every excuse to complain and bicker about strategy, resources, training. Every single day it felt like he was slipping away more and more, and she’d known. She just hadn’t expected the accusation in his voice. “You got any better ideas, Commander?”

She leaned against the bulkhead, her arms folded over her chest as she watched him. He didn’t move, just pulled the covers up. “Yeah. Going to sleep.”

“No, really. I want to know.”

“Here’s an idea,” he snapped as he sat up, his voice rising. “We move on. Keep going.” He shoved the covers back and got to his feet. “Earth is out there, Kara. We both saw it. I didn’t believe it at first, but after Kobol… it’s out there, we know it, and we owe it to the fleet to bring them there.”

She started across the room, arms still folded. She grit her teeth, voice low. “What about the people on New Caprica, Lee? What about what we owe them?”

“We already left them behind.”

“We fell back so that we could regroup—so we could catch the Cylons off their guard and get our people back! _That_ is why—”

“They’re _gone_, Kara. Why the _hell_ can’t you see that?!”

Lee’s shout was a kick to the gut. His jaw was set, eyes cold, and she realized that he really believed it. He believed that everyone left behind on that planet was dead. But no matter how hard she looked she couldn’t see any sign of remorse, no guilt, just resignation that that was the way it was and there was no going back. Frakking idiot.

“They’re down there, Lee. We have a Raptor at New Caprica every day. The Cylon fleet is still there; why would they still be hanging around that planet if they just killed everyone off? The Cylons jammed the communications to the ground. That is the _only_ reason that we haven’t been able to get in contact with our people down there.” Lee scoffed and opened his mouth, but she didn’t want to hear what he had to say. “There was an arrangement, alright?” she said, barreling right over him. “A plan. The Old Man told Tigh that if anything happened, that Raptor would be there. Okay? Tigh is down there. Roslin, Chief, Cally, they’re all down there waiting for us to come back and—”

“Did you ever stop to think for even one second, _one frakking second_, that we haven’t heard from them is because they are _dead_?!”

Over in her crib, Alex’s let out a whine, fussing and on the verge of waking. Kara glanced over her shoulder and then turned back to Lee, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him towards the door. She was not going to have this fight in front of the baby; she was not going to have her child waking up to adults screaming. “Don’t you dare do this. Not here,” she said, barely keeping her voice reined in.

“I don’t give a frak!” He shoved her back, holding his ground. “It’s been three and a half frakking months, Kara. We left them behind; there’s no going back! Why can’t you get that through your godsdamned head!? All this plan is doing is jeopardizing the lives of the rest of the people in the fleet, the people we _did_ save! My duty—_our duty_—is to protect _them_, not go running off on some suicide mission and let the Cylons wipe us out once and for all.”

The whine turned into a full-blown cry, Alex’s sobs filling the room. Kara turned her back on Lee, heading for the crib. “Godsdamnit!” she hissed. She scooped Alex up, holding her against her chest as she continued to wail. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. Momma’s here, Momma’s got you.” She couldn’t get the edge out of her voice, and Alex just cried louder.

“You’re making it worse,” Lee snapped. “Give her to me.” He strode towards them, but Kara just held Alexandra closer. She studied Lee’s face, looking for something, anything—any trace of the man she’d sat with, passing a drink back and forth watching the gun cam footage after he’d…after _they_’d shot down the _Olympic Carrier_; any trace of the man who’d pulled the CAP to look for her when she crash landed on that frakking moon; any trace of Apollo, who carried his grudges and guilt around until it nearly killed him—left in _Commander_ Adama.

Nothing.

“Frak off,” she muttered as she pushed past him, stepping back into her pants and pulling them on. Before she could move again, he caught her by the shoulder and spun her around.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Out.” She jerked away from his hand.

“Going to let her wake up the whole frakking ship?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest. His voice was calm again, but cold.

“Just going to walk her around until she stops crying.”

Before Lee could say another word, she was out the door, wandering the halls. She rocked Alexandra until her cries turned to hiccups, which soon turned to sniffles. Kara found herself carrying Alex down towards the gym. It was completely empty at this hour, so she sat down on one of the benches, holding her daughter in her lap. She wasn’t crying anymore, but she didn’t look like she was ready to fall back to sleep either.

Kara brushed back a few wisps of Alex’s hair. “Sorry,” she murmured. “Didn’t mean to wake you up, but your dad was being a jerk.” Kara choked back a bitter laugh. Why the hell was she trying to explain this to the baby? She didn’t understand a word of what she was saying. Kara let her head thud back against the bulkhead.

Maybe the rescue mission was a risk, but there were thirty-nine thousand people down on that planet, and all Lee could think about were the two thousand that still remained. Of course he was—always so frakking concerned with doing the right thing, the greater good. Alex flapped her arms a little bit, babbled something that sounded like she was actually trying to say something.

That was when the thought hit her. What if she’d been down there? What if Alex had been down there? She’d thought about taking a day of leave to drop in on the friends who’d moved down there—what if they’d been planetside when the Cylons attacked? Would Lee still be adamant about only saving the two thousand people in the fleet?

Probably. Her stomach churned at the thought. Command had changed Lee—maybe he’d been right to be so frakking worried that he’d turn into the father he thought he had. The only thing that seemed to matter to him anymore was his duty, his job. Frak everything else—his family included.

She should’ve known better. Hell, she had known better. She’d known when she’d gotten pregnant that she was going to end up doing this alone. Lee’d barely been there, always so caught up in his work—his _duty_—that she hadn’t even see him on a regular basis until she was eight months along. She supposed his heart had never really been in it after all, it was just an obligation, and now he had obligations that were more important.

And she wasn’t going to wait around here, trying to hang on to a family she was never going to have.

=====================

Lee hadn’t seen much of Kara since the fight. She was working harder now, training harder. She spent more and more of her time on _Galactica_, leaving him with the child more and more. If she’d been on _Pegasus_, she was asleep by the time he got off duty, or if not she was gone until long after he was asleep and up before he was awake—if she was even coming to bed at all.

Gods, she’d been so frakking stubborn. Leaving those people behind on New Caprica had been the hardest decision of his life, but he remembered what Roslin had told him right after the _Olympic Carrier_—that it was imperative for a leader to remember and learn from his mistakes, even if he couldn’t admit to them publicly.

Defining the decision to leave as a mistake was difficult, thinking about how many lives would’ve been lost if they’d stayed, but he couldn’t help but think that going back would mean that he’d failed to learn from his mistakes. He’d risk more lives than he needed to, risk his child’s life in the process. Couldn’t Kara see that he was just trying to keep her safe, keep their family safe?

He told himself that it was just Kara, just the way she was. She needed to sort things out on her own; they’d work it out later. They had a family—they needed to work it out.

At least, he had told himself that until the third day, when he received a stack of reports from _Galactica_. The rage that rushed through him made it feel like his blood would boil as he stormed from CIC to his quarters. When the hatch slid open, he saw that Kara was methodically shoving her belongings into a duffle bag.

“What the hell is this?” he asked, holding the paper in the air. She threw a sidelong glance at him, barely missing a step as she continued packing.

“I dunno, Commander. You tell me.” She zipped the bag shut with a surprising emphasis.

“You’re transferring back to _Galactica_?” His jaw clenched tight, hands curling into fists. He knew that Kara loved to shove people away when the going got rough, but he didn’t expect this. He didn’t expect her to walk out on him, on their baby like this.

“Talked to the Admiral about it two days ago.” She turned her back on him, pulling out an empty bag. He could see from where he stood that the locker was empty of her clothing; what the hell else did she have left to pack? “Since you’re gonna need a new CAG, I think Case has what it takes.” It took him all of about five seconds to realize that she was packing up Alexandra’s belongings.

“No. No, Kara, you are not going to do this.” He crossed the room in three steps, grabbing her by the arm. “I’m not going to let you take my child away.”

“Let. Me. Go.” she hissed, jerking her arm out of his grip. “You’ve made it perfectly clear that your _duty_ is more important to you than me or Alex. I refuse to serve under a Commander who has his head so far up his ass that he can’t even see what’s right in front of him.” She headed straight for the crib, scooping Alex up into her arms, swaddling her in the gray blanket. “And I sure as hell am not going to walk out on my child.”

“So you’re going to take her away from me?” Lee could feel the venom in his own voice. “She’s _my_ child, too.”

“I’d tell you to call a lawyer, but wait. There’s no law left. You left it all behind on New Caprica.” She balanced the baby in one arm and pulled her bag onto her other shoulder. She stood there, stance wide, daring him to do something and knowing he wouldn’t do anything. Not in front of their child.

“So, that’s what this is? You’re trying to blackmail me into going along with this plan?”

“I really don’t give a flying frak what you do anymore, sir. But if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a Raptor to catch.”

And she was gone—they were gone. Kara and Alexandra. Lee stood there, alone in his empty quarters. He could chase her down the hall, shout or scream or beg, but it wouldn’t make a damned bit of difference. Hell, it’d probably just frak things up even more. He’d lost her, lost them, and was left with a boiling rage in his gut.

He embraced it, let it envelop him. It was all he had left. 


	5. Part 3C

“Please, Alex. I know it’s disgusting, but you need to eat it,” Kara said. She knelt in front of Alexandra, who was sitting propped up on a chair. The cold metal grating dug into Kara’s knees as she waved the spoon of mashed protein matter in front of the little girl’s face. Alex turned her face away, whining loudly. This particular mealtime had already lasted for the better part of half an hour, and the baby still refused to eat. Kara could feel her patience fraying.

She waved the spoon in front of Alex’s mouth. The ten-month-old grunted and swatted the spoon out of Kara’s hand, splattering the grey mush across her face and tanks.

“_Godsdamnit_! Alex, just stop _whining_ and eat your frakking food!” Kara shouted before she could stop herself. The outburst was immediately followed by a harsh infant cry. Kara raked her hands through her hair.

_Frak frak frak frak. _

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. Momma didn’t mean to yell,” she muttered, scooping Alexandra into her arms. The infant wailed, wiggled, resisted, refused to settle down. “Shhh…shhh…come on.”

For some reason, Kara’s head felt unbearably heavy—her eyes stung and she wanted to scream herself. Why had she thought she could do this? Why had she thought that she could raise a baby alone? It had only been two weeks since she’d transferred back to _Galactica_, but she wasn’t sure she was going to last another day.

In the back of her mind, an idea hovered that she couldn’t bring herself to think: This would be so much easier with Lee. Not just easier—better… He was so good with Alex. He was the one who told her bedtime stories, read to her; the sound of his voice could calm her down like nothing else. Kara scrubbed a hand over her face. Frak, what did it matter anymore? Kara doubted he even missed them, noticed they were gone—he was too busy worrying over the future of the fleet to worry about the future of his family.

Kara closed her eyes and sucked in a breath, fighting against the way her chest felt like it was closing up.

A loud knock at the hatch jerked Kara out of her thoughts. “What?!” she snapped.

The door swung open and heavy footsteps approached. She didn’t have to look up to know that it was Helo. “What’s going on in here?”

“I can’t get her to eat. I can’t get her to stop crying. I can’t… I just can’t do this.”

He bent down, lifting Alexandra out of Kara’s arms. Kara slumped against the chair, leaning her head on the seat as Karl paced around the room, rocking the baby in his arms. “Hey there,” he said, voice soft. “I heard you’re giving your mother a hard time. But you gotta cut her a little slack, alright? She’s trying, but nobody’s perfect. Let’s see if we can get some food in that tummy, and maybe we can get you down for a nap?”

Eventually Alex quieted down, got fed, and got settled into her crib. Karl squatted down beside Kara as she propped her head in her hand. “You doing okay down here?”

“Quit talking to me like I’m the frakking kid,” she muttered. Kara gripped the chair with both hands and hauled herself to her feet.

“It’s okay to ask for help, you know,” he said, standing and placing a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged him off. “You’re not used to doing this on your own.”

“Well, I need to get used to it,” she said through grit teeth.

He stepped around to face her and settled his hands on her arms. “Losing your temper at your child isn’t going to solve anything, Kara.”

“I know that!” Kara recoiled, curling her arms around herself, fingernails biting into the flesh of her arms. She hated the sound of her own voice, hated screaming around her kid. That was not the kind of life she wanted for her daughter. Wasn’t that half of the reason she was here, alone—to get her away from the yelling and the fighting? “Frak, I’m turning into my mother,” she muttered under her breath.

“Hey.” Karl’s voice was firm but soft. “Don’t talk like that. You got tired, you got stressed, and you yelled. That doesn’t mean you’re turning into your mother. It just means you need a little help, that’s all.”

At this point, it was more or less impossible to argue with that logic. Kara scrubbed a hand over her face, and looked over at Alex in her crib—she hadn’t settled down, but instead was standing on the mattress, holding the railing and watching them curiously. Alexandra bounced a little bit and held her hand out towards Kara, her hand clenching and unclenching like she was grabbing at her.

She might not be perfect, but at least she could try to make things better. She walked over to the crib and scooped Alex up, settling her on her hip. Alex rested her head against Kara’s side. “I didn’t mean to yell.”

“I think she knows that,” Karl said.

Something on his face softened as he watched Kara with the baby, something distant and sad. It didn’t take her long to realize he was thinking about his own little girl that he never got to see grow up. She pulled Alexandra higher on her hip. “So, thanks for feeding my kid for me, but I take it you didn’t just come down here to give me a parenting pep-talk.”

“Good news,” he said. “Great news, actually.”

“What’s going on?”

“We’ve made contact with the people on the ground on New Caprica.”

====================

_Eighteen hours. Take the civilian fleet and wait eighteen hours. If Galactica doesn’t return in eighteen hours…_

“Dada!”

Lee was jerked out of his thoughts by the small voice cutting through the noise on the hangar deck. Lee looked up from the brief his father’d handed him to see Kara with a duffle bag on one shoulder and Alex balanced on her hip. Alex’s arms stretched out to him insistently, and he didn’t hesitate to lean forward and take his little girl into his arms. She buried her face in his neck, burbling a string of happy sounds as he held her to his chest. He murmured her name, pressing a kiss to the fine brown hairs on the top of her head.

“She missed you.” Kara’s voice was even as she spoke. She stood across from them, arms folding over her chest. “Sometimes she wouldn’t stop crying. No matter what I did, she just cried all night.”

He wanted to tell her it served her right. It served her right for taking his child away, it served her right for splitting up their family. He wanted to tell her any of the dozens of bitter, resentful things he’d imagined telling her the next time he saw her. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Instead, he said, “I missed her, too.”

Kara tugged at the strap of the duffle bag for a moment, her knuckles turning white where her hand clutched the strap, before sliding it off her shoulder and holding it out to him. “Everything you should need is in there—diapers, her blanket, there are a couple of bottles in there. You need to get them in the fridge as soon as you get back. They should last a while."

_Eighteen hours. Take the civilian fleet and wait eighteen hours. If_ Galactica _doesn’t return in eighteen hours_… Lee repeated the words in his head as a long silence stretched between them filled with the question he couldn’t bring himself to ask—could barely bring himself to recognize.

He watched the way Kara pursed her lips, steeling herself to speak again. “She’s been eating some mashed algae lately. She hates the stuff, but…” The even tone broke, and Kara shut her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. “She hates the stuff, but she’ll eat it.” Her eyes snapped open again, hard and focused again. “So, that should be everything you need, Commander.” She took a step backwards, starting to turn away. “Take care of her.”

Before Lee knew what he was doing he was reaching out, catching Kara by the wrist, and drawing her back to him. She resisted for a moment, but that didn’t surprise him. What surprised him was the way she turned back to him, eyebrow raised questioningly. Lee studied her face.

He’d spent the better part of the last two weeks being absolutely, completely furious with her, but all he could think of now was the fact that this might be the last time he ever saw her. “There’s no way I can talk you out of this,” he murmured; it wasn’t a question, it was simply a fact. He hadn’t been able to talk his father out of the mission, so there was no way he would be able to convince her to stay behind.

“I have to do this.” She didn’t say the words, but he heard them underneath it. _This is the right thing to do; why can’t you see that?_ Lee let his hand fall away, slipping it around Alexandra, holding her tighter. Kara’s eyes tracked the embrace and something in her stance softened. “What did the Old Man say?”

“Eighteen hours. If you’re not back at the rendezvous in eighteen hours, then…then I take the civilian fleet and go find Earth.”

“Then that’s what you’ll do.”

Gods, he envied that resolve. He wanted to hear her say she was coming back, wanted her to smirk and tell him that no frakking toasters were gonna take her out today, wanted her to lie to him, because there was absolutely no way of knowing if he was ever going to get the chance to hold her like this again. The thought of losing her, losing his father, being left to raise Alexandra alone flashed in his mind—of him growing distant and her growing up hating him.

“I can’t. Kara, I ca—”

Before he could finish, Kara closed the space between them, tangling a hand in his uniform and crushing her lips to his. “Don’t be an idiot,” she growled as she pulled back. “When Alex was born, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to let anything hurt her. I didn’t know how to be a mom, but I knew I could protect her. So you better not do anything to put her in danger, Lee,” she warned. “Eighteen hours. If I’m not back in eighteen hours, you take our daughter, you find Earth, and you make sure she stays safe.”

He nodded his understanding, not trusting himself to speak at that moment. When she let go of him, he held onto their child just a little bit tighter. As he climbed up to the Raptor, he heard her announce, “Commander, _Pegasus_, departing.”

He turned back to see Kara, his father having appeared at her side, both saluting him, the rest of the deck crew and pilots following their example. Lee snapped off a salute before turning to address his father. “Eighteen hours,” he said, as if saying it could hold him to his promise. He turned his gaze to Kara, fighting back the regret building inside of him—how could they have spent the last weeks apart, angry, alone, how could he let her go when he just got her back? Alex let out a small noise as she looked back at her mother. All Lee could trust himself to tell her was, “Good hunting.”

====================

Kara’s head throbbed; it was the only thing she was really aware of as she stumbled down the ladder from her Viper. She’d managed to bring her bird onto the hangar on a broken, smoking wing, body rattling in the cockpit as the plane hit the deck. She pulled her helmet off, tossing it aside in some direction, she wasn’t sure which. Someone caught her by the arm, insisting that she get to sick bay, she was bleeding—but she shrugged…whoever the hell…off.

There was only one thing on her mind, and that was the way she’d seen _Pegasus_ collide with one of the Cylon basestars—the soundless explosion that engulfed the ship played on an endless loop in her head. Her stomach lurched at the thought and she moved on autopilot, shoving her way through the crowd, stumbling her way towards a Raptor being brought onto the deck.

Kara stood, watching as the hatch raised—slowly, too slowly, did it always take so frakking long? It was all she could do not to climb up onto the wing. Kara felt a wave of relief rush though her as the metal door swung open, revealing Lee standing in the cockpit. He jumped down from the wing and crossed to her in two strides, immediately pulling her into his arms. He crushed her against his chest, holding her tight before he drew back and kissed her soundly—she remembered this part, remembered the Apollo who’d slipped, told her he loved her, and tried to get out of it. Maybe he was still in there somewhere. Maybe.

The relief lasted only for a brief moment, though, as the thought that had been eating away at her since the destruction of _Pegasus_ rose to the forefront of her mind once again. She pulled back just enough to look Lee in the eyes. “Where’s Alex?”

“She’s fine,” Lee assured her, brushing a hand through her hair. “She’s fine. She’s with a childcare facility on the _Zephyr_.”

Kara let the tension go with a sigh. “Thank the gods,” she murmured, trying to process what had just happened. He’d come back. He defied the Admiral’s orders to…to save them all. They’d been outnumbered, they were losing; they wouldn’t have made it without _Pegasus_’s help. “Lords, your orders were to stay with the fleet. What the frak were you thinking?!”

“I never could read my dad’s handwriting.” Lee pulled back, smiling.

“You’re insane.”

“Well, you’re a bad influence on me.” He tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, and his hand came away red. His face paled. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s nothing. Got a little shaken up.”

“You should go down to sick bay.”

“Lee—”

“That’s an order, Captain.” The way his hand cupped her cheek, the tone of his voice, the look in his eye all told her he was worried—genuinely worried. Everything about him was exactly as she remembered. She swallowed hard, tried to remember the reasons she’d left him in the first place: he wasn’t the man she thought he was—or maybe he was too much that man. She didn’t know. She just knew that her head hurt and thinking was hard.

“Yes, sir.”

Sickbay was crowded—the Doc was already overwhelmed with patients, and he was just off the planet himself. When Lee was called away, Kara was tempted to get up, walk out, but Cottle beat her to the punch and decided to run a couple of tests. Eventually, he declared that she was minorly concussed and there was nothing to do about it, so she should get the frak out so he could use the bed for other patients.

As she stepped out into the corridor, she heard a voice beside her. “Need an escort?” She turned to see Lee approaching her, Alexandra in his arms. She had her head on his shoulder and looked about half asleep. “A very small escort,” he said, nodding to her daughter—their daughter.

Kara stepped forward, and pulled Alexandra against her chest, and Alex snuggled into her, starting to drift off again. She remembered, back when she was pregnant, doubting she could love this child enough. Sometimes, the worry, the fear that she’d do something to mess it all up was overwhelming, but she had no doubt in her mind that she loved this little girl.

When she glanced up, she saw that Lee was watching them, like nothing in all the worlds would make him happier than looking at the two of them. “I was going to put her to bed but…I don’t really know where that is.”

“Follow me.” She lead him back to the private quarters she’d been granted—couldn’t exactly keep a baby in the pilots’ quarters, not with almost a dozen other viper jocks who needed their sleep. Alex was already out when Kara settled her into the crib, She watched as Lee tucked Alex’s grey blanket around her, murmuring softly like he always had. He brushed a few strands of dark hair back from Alex’s forehead, looking at the baby like she was his greatest joy in the worlds, and Kara felt herself begin to smile. In some ways, it felt like picking up right where they’d left off—or maybe that was just the head injury. It couldn’t be that easy.

“So, Commander, where are you staying?”

Lee looked up at the sound of her voice; his eyes darted from Kara to the baby to the door and then back to Kara. “Actually, it’s Major again,” he said, digging his hands into the pockets of his BDUs. “The Old Man wanted to reinstate me as CAG, so he bumped me down a couple of paygrades.” The corner of his lips quirked up into a smile as he watched for her reaction.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she reminded him.

“I really don’t know,” he said, shifting his weight. “Everything’s pretty chaotic right now, but I’m sure there’s a bunk free somewhere.”

Kara glanced down, noticing that his hand was still resting on Alexandra’s foot. Looking at the two of them evoked one word, one feeling—_mine. My daughter, my partner, my family_. She turned, heading for her rack. “Well, I might need a hand taking care of the nugget… head injury and all that.”

She settled down, stretching out along the edge of the mattress. Looking up, she saw that Lee hadn’t moved. She nodded her head, signaling him to follow.

As he settled down next to her, he slipped his arm around her waist. Could it really be as simple as that? Could they really just go back to the way things used to be—sharing quarters…being a family? Kara couldn’t keep the single mom thing up, she just couldn’t. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she needed Lee’s help—she wanted him to be there, to raise their child together, to be with her. She’d fallen so frakking in love with him that she couldn’t find her way back out.

How long would it last, though? Until the next fight, until they tore each other apart? She couldn’t let Alexandra be a victim to her parents, didn’t want to raise her child in a personal war zone. But would keeping their family apart really be any better?

Lee’s hand rested, splayed, across her lower belly, his face nuzzling the back of her neck. Lying in his arms felt good, warm, comforting, and she found herself settling back into his hold. He breathed out, warm air tickling her neck and soft words in her ear, “I missed you.”

Three words, and he said them like they were the most important thing in the worlds. Kara shifted, rolling over to look at him. Maybe it was just that easy; maybe being family just meant coming back to each other. He’d come back for her—to help her, to risk his life for hers—even when she didn’t think he would. Kara tucked her head under his chin and relaxed into him. Maybe. Just maybe. “I missed you, too.”


End file.
